<p>[Bloomberg.com:</a> Opinion](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>"The second response is perhaps more powerful. Let’s see what happens when we allow mandatory spending to go up as it did. This lets Bush have his prescription-drug benefit, which is now part of mandatory spending. </p>
<p>If we had held the line on everything else that is discretionary, we could have had the prescription-drug plan, the Iraq war and the war against terrorists. We could have kept all the Bush tax cuts, made them permanent, repealed the AMT and added the stimulus package and still ended up with a balanced budget from 2008 to 2017. </p>
<p>Bloated Uncle </p>
<p>It makes you sick to think about it. All that money wasted on ethanol and bridges to nowhere has accumulated into a pile that massive. Uncle Sam ate a whopping helping of apple pie every day for seven years, and now he is obese. "</p>